Huay Xai

This place is a typical border town.  There is a mass exodus and entrance from / to Laos in the morning.  Thailand is visible just across the river.  I can see the small boats ply their trade between the two countries.

Once the new arrivals get here they for the most part head for the ferry terminals and straight out of town.

After the morning rush the town except for the few odd arrivals returns to its sleepy self.  There are very few travellers remaining after about 1030.  Not that I blame them since there isn’t much to do here.

I managed to find the office for the Gibbon Experience and booked to go on Wednesday.  It is a little expensive USD 125.00 but it is for 3 days & two nights and everything is included.  At first I was a little bit disappointed that I am going to be stuck here for another day particularly since there is not much to do here.  Still delays while travelling are inevitable.

I was sitting in a riverside restaurant and the last minute dash of boats has started with travellers crossing the river in a last minute bid to get across the river before the border closes for the night.  The slow boat has just pulled in and a couple of the travellers are running up the road, quite hard work with a back pack on.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them there was no point in running since it was already after 1800 and it is about a 15 minute walk between where the slow boat pulls in and where the boats for Thailand leave.

Huay Xai to Bokeo National Park

The morning started about 0630, kind of that hurry up & wait thing since we didn’t end up leaving until about 0815.

The first part of the trip is sitting in the back of a truck fitted out with a couple of planks of wood, with a little padding on them and a canopy to keep the sun off.

There are 9 of us from various parts of the globe.  3 Canadians, 2 British, 2 Swedish and 1 German.  The drive was mostly on gravel roads some of them were not too bad, others were a little, um, bumpy.  Though it seems they are trying to upgrade the road still it will be awhile before the work is finished.

We arrived in a small village of Ban Tup about 3 1/2 hours after we left Huay Xai.  From here we learned we had to walk for about 1 hour to get to the tree house.

The trek up to the tree house was not really that bad.  We had to wade through about 4 streams the last just above the knees so they really were not that deep.  The journey after the 4th stream was mostly straight up and personally I was glad when we got there.

The kitchen was the first building we saw, ground side for obvious reasons, open fires in a tree house really do not make sense.

We got given a harness each and then walked up to the first zip line.  There was some brief instruction on the harness and safety before we all zipped across to the tree house one at a time.

It is rather basic but still has more than I expected.  The main level is the living area with a small kitchen.  There is the upper level a small ‘bower’ that sleeps two people and a lower level that sleeps 4 people.  On the lower level there is also a bathroom.  The water in the bathroom is cold but they have plans to put in solar hot water panels in the future so there can be hot water.

Here we got to have a break for about an hour.  Three of us had to go to the number 3 tree house as this one only sleeps 6 people.  I volunteered and so did the Canadian couple.  So off we went zipping with one of the guides leading us to the 3rd tree house.  All up it took about 40 minutes incorporating another 4 zip lines and small treks between the lines.  Zipping is fun when you get used to it and the views as you are zipping across are spectacular.  On the way the Gibbons started singing but unfortunately we did not see them.

The 3rd tree house is some what smaller and all on one level housing a maximum of 4 people.  The advantage is a truly amazing view across the top of the canopy.

The day was finished off watching the sun set across the canopy and we ate dinner & played cards by candlelight.

Bokeo National Park

Got up about 0600 and watch dawn take hold across the jungle it was beautiful to watch.  It is not anywhere near as noisy as being in town, no roosters, no dogs….

We managed to have some fruit for breakfast and moved out by about 0800.  We were running late but none of us really minded.  We met the others about half way and they were all headed to the third tree house.  Obviously plans had changed overnight.  I guess that is one problem with being at the third tree house is that you are out of contact so will not know when plans have changed.

They served us a hot breakfast when we all got back to the first tree house.  Strangely enough the breakfast was very similar to dinner, rice a small amount of meat and vegetables.

From there we had the day to ourselves to go off and play on the zip lines.

A group of us went off to the second tree house, the others had been there yesterday while we were zipping out to the third house.

Lunch was similar to breakfast and dinner the night before.  Do not get me wrong it is nice food but the same food every meal…..

More of the same happened in the afternoon and then three of the others swapped out with us for their turn in the third tree house.

The evening past with cards, dinner and talk over candlelight and the smoke of the mosquito coils.

The surprise of the evening was dinner…. it was the same as all the other meals but with four types of vegetable dishes with rice and no meat.  No gibbons today, still it was lots of fun.

Bokeo National Park to Luang Nam Tha

The rain started about 0400 and just kept going.  By 0600 it was still raining steadily.  The guide came across with more hot water for coffee and tea.  He told us that we wouldn’t be going zipping as planned due to the rain and fog as it was too dangerous.  He also said that because it was raining the gibbons wouldn’t ‘sing’ so he would not be able to guide us too them.

While it was a little disappointing the experience was still worthwhile.  We all sat around staring out at the fog and rain until 1000 before zipping back to the kitchen area to hand back our harnesses.  Thankfully it had stopped raining but the trail down was quite slippery, almost like wet clay all the way down and the rivers were higher.  Even though we all rolled our trouser legs up there was no point really.  Particularly on the deepest as those of us who are a little shorter got we anyway as the water level came up to my upper thigh.

We were all well and truly mud splattered and just generally grubby by the time we got back to the village of Ban Tup particularly those who’d slipped over.  Thankfully I wasn’t one of them.

We weren’t sitting in Ban Tup long before the truck arrived to drop off the new group and pick us up.  I almost felt sorry for the new group.  At least we had good conditions except for the last day.

The ride back was just as bumpy going out as coming in had been.  We hadn’t been on the road long before we encountered another ute that had broken down.  So our driver stopped to help him.

We were there for about 40 minutes while they were trying to fix the vehicle before we all piled back into our vehicle and the driver took us back to the rest stop where we’d left our bags so we could have lunch.  The driver then turned around and went back to help his stranded work mate.

We had a hasty lunch before the bus to Luang Nam Tha arrived.  Kate and Moses, the UK couple were the only others from our group heading on to Luang Nam Tha so we said a quick goodbye to the others, who were returning to Huay Xai then got on the local bus.

Straight in the doorway just up the stairs sat a dirty old engine which we had to scramble over to find some seats at the back of the bus.  The bus was old and it really did not sound that healthy when it changed gears.

The road, well, it wasn’t the worst I’ve been on but it was pretty close and I left contact with my seat on a regular basis.  Still the scenery as we wound through the mountains was fantastic.  Still the road deteriorated as we went north and the driver drove like a man possessed.

The road narrowed and started to appear less like a road and more like a track cut through the jungle.  We were going well and it looked like we’d be in Luang Nam Tha by about 2000, I guess that is one advantage to having a mad bus driver when about 1830 we came to a grinding holt.  I mean ‘grinding’ quite literally!

It was dark but we could see the tail lights from multiple vehicles up ahead.  The bus driver turned off the bus, not a good sign and got off the bus walking into the darkness up the road.  After about 5 minutes when it was obvious we weren’t going anywhere in a hurry we, being the other 9 westerners on the bus, got off to see what was going on.

We started off down the line of vehicles before speaking to a couple of people from the ‘early’ bus from Huay Xai and they told us they had been there a couple of hours and there was a bus and a truck bogged up ahead that quite effectively blocked the road.

We kept going and encountered the bus first, it was well and truly stuck and looked like it had been trying to get around the truck in front.  It really did not look promising.  The truck had a full load of coal and was at a really bad angle.  It looked like a strong breeze would be enough to tip it over on its side.  The rear left hand wheels were sunk in the mud with only about 5cm of the top of the wheels showing and the front left hand wheels did not look that much better.

There was a truck in front that had stopped to help.  Their first attempt to pull the truck out of the mud proved to be a little disastrous as the truck tilted even more and dug itself further into the mud.

After this attempt progress seemed to grind to a halt with everyone reduced to looking at the truck.  The mood of everyone sunk just a little contemplating how long we were going to be stuck here in the middle of no where.  One of the guys looked up and seeing the stars made a comment that at least the stars were out so it wasn’t going to rain.  I groaned, someone had to say ‘At least it won’t rain’.  The locals who were not involved in the truck watching curled up on the bus to sleep.

Finally after about 30 minutes of truck watching one of the locals brought out some picks and shovels and they started to go to work.  Some of the guys got in and took their turn with the shovel to help.  Having a torch I did the whole holding the torch to the poor sods who were doing the digging could see what they were doing thing.  The guys helped on the dry side of the truck, the advantage being if the truck tipped over it would not be falling on them.  The down side being it was hard work on the dry side.  They chipped away at the hard packed ground only getting small chunks of earth dislodged even though they displayed great effort.

The local guys on the other side had the advantage of the ground having the consistency of mush but the stood hip deep in the mud but if the truck tipped it was going to tip over on them.

By the looks of it they were digging wells under the dry side trying to reduce some of the tilt on the vehicle.  It seemed ot work, a little.

Kate and Moses brought out a bottle of Remy Martin Brandy and passed it around our group.  It was remarkable that the mood got quite, I guess you would say jovial after that.

About 2245 they made another attempt to pull the truck free.  We all started clapping and cheering.  The locals all just looked at us as if we were weird.

A second group had been working on the bus and had managed to get that free with only a little effort.  About 2300 we were back on the bus and once again headed down the road towards Luang Nam Tha.

The bus was sliding all over the road which caused some concern in parts because of the drop straight down at some points.

We arrived in Luang Nam Tha about midnight, hours later than we should have.  The restaurant at the bus station was still open so we sat at on long table to have a much delayed dinner.  I think one and all we were just glad we had finally made it to town.

Luang Nam Tha

The first thing I did in the morning after breakfast was find alternate accommodation.  Most of us had ended up at the Bus Station Guest House since it was about the only place open in town when we arrived.  The town seemed to shut down about 2200 hours in Laos.  It was great to get a bed for the night but the place was just way too noisy

The main street where most of the accommodation and retaurants are is the kind of place that even in daylight you wonder if your in the right place.  It’s kind of empty.

The new place is about 50 cents more expensive but they claim to have hot water.  Still I noticed that it’s solar hot water system and since it’s been overcast for the last few days I doubt that there is any.  Still it is quiet and the bed and pillows seem to be comfortable which is a bonus.

I wanted to do a 3 to 4 day kayaking trip in Luang nam Tha National Park but when I went to see about it they told me that the next one would not leave until the 22 November.  That would mean 2 days of cooling my heals waiting for the trek.  Given that I am heading into my last week I really did not want to do that.  The only trek going was a one day trip personally I did not see the pint of pay for that since I’d already seen Hmong villages and weaving & paper making both on this trip and on others.

I sat on it over lunch and thought about what I wanted to do.  I’ve decided to leave the North and try to head down South for my last week perhaps to the islands and the ruins I thought of flying back to Vientianne but the plane is booked up until the 28 November.  So that does not do me any good.  So I decided that I would try and catch a bus tomorrow afternoon to Udomxai and try to arrange a plane from there.  I got told there was only 1 bus and that was at 0830 in the morning.  That really did not do me much good since my washing is still back and since it is raining it does not look likely that it will dry in time.  I gave up and decided tomorrow could look after itself.

It is strange to be in a place that despite how small still has an Internet conection.  I made use of it but kept it short as it was very expensive when compared to the rest of Laos.

In the afternoon I went for a walk and saw the old village and the Wat.  Then in the late afternoon I joined Kate and Moses at the Boat Landing Guesthouse for a drink.